By Shereefdeen Ahmad
A news report has been circulating that Nigeria spends more than 1.7 billion dollars annually on milk importation.
The report which has been published by several news organisation credited the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as the source.
The NAN report had attributed the claim to the National President of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, (MACBAN), Baba Ngelzarma.
The report stated that Ngelzarma made this known on Sunday, 12th November 2023 while speaking (NAN) in Abuja.
The claim has been published by several national media platforms as seen here, here, here and here.
However, NAN did not quote Ngelzarma word for word on the part of the exact claim.
The Claim:
Nigeria spends more than 1.7 billion dollars annually on milk importation.
The Findings:
The findings show that the claim is incorrect.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) and published in Daily Trust Newspaper showed that Nigeria spent at least N72.9 billion on milk importation in 2022. This figure is not even up to $100m.
The NBS’ report, titled “Foreign Trade Statistics”, stated that N27.6bn worth of the commodity was imported in the first quarter of the year, followed by N21.3bn in the second quarter and N23.9bn in the third quarter, while the data for the fourth quarter was not available as the product did not make it into the top five imported raw material products.
“Milk preparations containing vegetable fats/oils, powdered/granular, packings greater than 25kg were mostly imported from the Republic of Ireland (N44.7bn), Malaysia (N15.8bn) and Germany (N5.6bn),”the report added.
The figure indicates a N4 billion reduction in the amount spent for milk importation in the last quarter of 2021.
Meanwhile, in 2020, the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development (FMARD) estimated that Nigeria spends $1.5 billion annually to import milk and other dairy products.
Abdulkadir Mu’azu, FMARD permanent secretary, provided the figure while speaking at the inception workshop of Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations Technical Cooperation Project(TCP).
Therefore, an annual estimation of Nigeria’s spending on milk importation does not amount to over 1.7 billion dollars.
Verdict
The claim that Nigeria spends more than 1.7 billion dollars annually on milk importation is incorrect.